EVOLVING MEDIA: AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE DIGITAL IDENTITY

Media are constantly evolving and these changes have significantly altered our ways of thinking and our identities. In this thesis I discuss digital media – more specifically the Internet and social media – and their impact on the formation of identity. I undertake this examination by turning to previous changes in media technologies and how they have impacted identity formation. I use salient examples in the form of media personae to illustrate how identity formation is viewed and changes over time. I intend to demonstrate that the advancements made through social media and the Internet have resulted in the formation of “imaginary” identities that provide individuals in the digital era with a great degree of freedom to self-fashion their own identities. This new malleable and multi-dimensioned human identity is the basis for a new forms of social life, learning, and social control.